Principles of Transparency Checklist

Peer review process
All journal content is clearly marked as peer-reviewed or not. Final article PDFs contain a description of the peer-review process (internal or external) and provenance (commissioned or non-commissioned) for that article. Peer review is single-blind within the journal. Every original article is peer-reviewed by a minimum of two external experts and one member of the editorial board. In all cases, the manuscript is also reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief. Letters to the Editor and editorials are peer-reviewed internally. All journal content is clearly marked as to whether it is peer-reviewed or not (internally vs. externally peer-reviewed). All articles have a specific provenance and peer review tab (commissioned vs. non-commissioned).

Authors may suggest external reviewers that are qualified to peer review the manuscript, provided that they have not collaborated closely in the near past and that they are not from the same institution. Authors may also note peer reviewers with whom they would not prefer to review this paper. While the authors' suggestions are taken into account, the Editorial Office reserves the right to handle single-blind peer review at its discretion. Any manuscripts received for review will be treated as confidential documents.

External peer reviewers are requested to report on the ethical aspects of the manuscript they are assigned to review and are also requested to report on the novelty, the impact, the statistical analysis, references, and potential conflicts of interest. A specific peer review form is provided with closed and open-based questions so as to rate the manuscript and provide comments.
Reviewers are also requested to consider the following should they proceed with a review for the journal:

• According to COPE, reviewers are strictly advised not to contact the authors directly without the permission of the journal.
• In cases of active collaboration with the authors of a manuscript, reviewers are suggested not to proceed with a review as this raises concerns about potential conflicts of interest and may put journal credibility at stake.
• Discrimination based on non-scientific criteria is clearly unacceptable (e.g. gender or nationality).

Governing Body
Our journal has an editorial board whose members are recognised leading experts in the area of respiratory medicine at a regional and international level. The full names and affiliations of the journal's editors are provided from the Editorial Board page. The editorial board is the final governing body of the journal.

Editorial team/contact information
We provide the full names and affiliations of the journal's editors, as well as the full address and contact information for the editorial office, the secretariat of the Hellenic Thoracic Society and the publisher, European Publishing.

Author fees
In Pneumon, there are no Article Processing Charges (APC) or any related subscription costs when authors are from Academia or Non Governmental Organisations.
For manuscripts submitted by authors affiliated with an industry (i.e. Pharmaceutical industry) an APC of 2200 Euro (plus VAT where applicable) is levied. In addition, if a commercial license (CC BY 4.0 or CC BY-ND 4.0) is applied, then a commercial license charge of 1000 E (plus VAT where applicable) is levied.

Copyright
Copyright is clearly described on the journal's website, and licensing terms are indicated on all published PDFs.
Authors submitting their work to Pneumon retain the copyright of their work without restrictions.
The default license for articles published in Pneumon is the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC 4.0).
Authors that wish to publish their work for commercial purposes can chose between the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0) or the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-ND 4.0).
Each article abstract and summary, as available on the website, has a dedicated “license” tab with a direct link to the licensing requirements of that article.

Process for identification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct
Both the publishers and the editors of the journal take affirmative action to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred, including plagiarism, citation manipulation, and data falsification/fabrication, among others. All authors are requested to complete and upload ICMJE conflict of interest forms. All manuscripts undergo Ithenticate plagiarism detection after each round of peer review. In the event that the journal's publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in their journal - COPE's guidelines will be followed when dealing with allegations.

Ownership and management
The journal is operated and managed by European Publishing, in close collaboration with the Hellenic Thoracic Society. All content is published under Creative Commons licenses, which means that authors retain ownership of the content of their manuscripts.

Web site
Our journal's website has been developed with care so as to ensure high ethical and professional standards. Constant updating is performed to enhance website utility, ease navigation, and maintain the most recent information available.

The Name of journal
The journal name Pneumon is unique and can not be confused with any of the other journals in the field. It has been published continuously since 1987 under the same name Pneumon (previously in Greek as "Πνεύμων").

Conflicts of interest
We have clear policies on handling potential conflicts of interest among editors, authors, and reviewers - all are requested to either complete ICMJE forms or declare no conflict of interest. The "Authorship & COI" Tab provides further information.

Access
Pneumon is freely available to readers with no subscription or pay-per-view fees. The number of direct downloads for each article is noted next to the article's abstract.

Revenue sources
Pneumon is supported through the application of Article Processing Charges, Commercial License charges, paper reprints, e-reprints and advertising.
The development of the journal has been partially funded through the Smart Specialization Strategy of Crete (S3), an innovation policy concept to support regional prioritisation in innovative sectors, fields or technologies. The European Commission introduced the S3 concept in the EU Cohesion Policy 2014-2020 as an ‘ex-ante conditionality’ for European regions to obtain funding for research and innovation from the European Regional Development Fund.

Advertising
Our journal accepts selected advertisements. The aim of this policy is to ensure that the content of advertising in the journal serves the best interests of the readers.
1) Advertisements must be legal, decent and accurate and must comply with the relevant laws and regulations.
2) Readers should immediately be able to distinguish between advertising and editorial content.
3) The journal accepts advertising for products and services that are of interest to users in their professional lives.
4) In line with the spirit of the policy on tobacco and non-pharmaceutical nicotine-containing products, the journal does not accept advertising relating to tobacco products or to products and services from tobacco companies, their foundations, or their subsidiaries.
5) The journal does not allow advertising to influence editorial decisions.
6) Advertising is subject to strict editorial oversight. Advertising may be refused if it is judged by editors to be in perceived or potential breach of any of the above points.
7) Advertising is depicted on the website and also in special issues forwarded to prescribing physicians in Greece, members of the Hellenic Thoracic Society.

Publishing schedule
The publishing schedule for our journal is quarterly, however, manuscripts are published online first, until they are assigned in an issue.

Archiving
To ensure digital preservation for the future, our electronic publications are archived with Portico. Portico is a third-party preservation service supported by both libraries and publishers to ensure that scholarly content published in electronic form will remain accessible for the long term.

Direct marketing
We do not engage in email solicitation of articles and will never email potential authors to attract submissions. We believe that this "spamming" practice is unethical and unprofessional. To us, the best promotion of a journal is through the maintenance of high standards, quality manuscripts, and vigorous peer review. In the case of very prominent researchers in the field, the Editor may send one-to-one personal invitations for commissioned manuscripts or guest editorials. In this event, the manuscript/editorial will be noted as "commissioned" in the footnote of the pdf and in HTML format.

Repository policy
The journal's open access policy is registered under Sherpa Romeo, an online resource that aggregates and presents publisher and journal open access policies from around the world.